


Love Live!! Demon Hunter Project

by Nhitori



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demon Hunters, Demon Hunters, Demons, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10699065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: Mari Ohara has been moonlighting as a demon hunter in Italy for several years, but decides it's time to go full-time and moves to Japan, where the work is more plentiful due to an unexplained shortage of hunters.  Soon enough, she meets two local hunters in Numazu named Kanan and Dia, who explain that the shortage of hunters, though being covered up, is likely the doing of an apocalyptic, demonic event known only as Ragnarok, which most notably wiped out two hunting groups known as A-Rise and μ's in Tokyo.  Learning this, Mari decides to team up with the other hunters and brace for Ragnarok's reawakening, which will occur five years after the Tokyo Hunters sacrificed their lives to put it into a brief state of dormancy.





	1. Mari Ohara says "Hiiiiiiiii~!"

**Author's Note:**

> Strange AU I started writing before the Sunshine anime even came out. Hope you like it! I have plans to continue, but only if there's demand for it!

“Mari, are you absolutely certain that this is what you want to do?”

“Hm?” Mari looked up from her suitcase, then grinned and flashed an ‘okay’ symbol, “Of course I am, Papa! Growing up, I always preferred our time in Japan, you know~ Now that I’m strong enough to get there and take care of myself for a few months till I find work, well, why wouldn’t I fulfill my dream of getting back there?”

“I know, I know, it’s just,” He sighed, stepping closer and putting a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him just a bit, meeting his eyes; both those and her own full of a soft concern. His for her, and hers for herself. She worried that he might veto her trip, and how would she deny him then? She was old enough to make these decisions for herself, but she’d always been an obedient child… in certain senses of the word, anyway, “I’m worried about you. It’s been years since you were last there, after all. Are you sure your Japanese is up to snuff? And…”

“I know,” She shook her head, smiling a bit bitterly as she unfolded to stand up straight aside from her head, which had her eyes now looking at nothing but the soft beige carpeting and the red specks around it. Hm, she should probably try and clean those stains before she left, “All the sports, all the training, I know you wanted me to be your successor… but this is something I’d really like to do, Papa! And hey,” She tilted her head upwards and to the side, winking, “With me out of the house, well, at least I won’t bother you with my music anymore?”

“And if I told you to stay, you would,” He groaned, leaning against the doorframe, “But I wouldn’t want to do that to you. Of course not, what sort of father would I be if I did? You can follow your dreams of course, but honestly, that wasn’t what I was going to say. You have the gifts which could make you a great hunter someday… and you’re a fine one now, but nonetheless, I wouldn’t force this future on you. You know that, right?”

“Mm, I know! You’ve told me all this so many times now, Papa…” She sighed in mock exasperation, gently tapping her fist against the side of her head, “You really can be a pain, you know! I do want to be a hunter of course! Just-”

“Mari…” He frowned, crossing his arms, “Is there anything I could possibly say to convince you to pursue another line of work when you get to Japan?”

“Eh…?” She questioned softly, then closed her eyes and shook her head in a very graceful, deliberate manner, “No, I don’t think so. If you forbid it, I would listen, but wouldn’t that be such a waste of my talents, Papa? Unless, I’m not actually as skilled as you say that I am… But what else would I even do? Papa, if I were to give up on hunting demons, I might have to turn to something like,” She opened her eyes and stepped closer, pointing up at his chin with a smirk, “Compensated dating? You wouldn’t want something like that for you darling daughter, woooould you~?”

“Of course not!” He protested, pushing her away slightly then holding onto her shoulders to look her in the eyes, “And I won’t. You’re a wonderful and bright young girl, dear, and I want to allow that spark to shine however you feel best. You don’t have to convince me. However,” He hesitated, “If you really must continue hunting in Japan, at least allow me to give you a few words of advice.”

“But of course! Advice from you is so valuable I shouldn’t say I’m allowing you to give it to me, really I should be begging for it all the time!” She giggled a bit, “After all, my Papa is the best in all of Venice!”

“Emphasis there, on Venice. You need to understand that the behavior of demons is very different between Italy and Japan. You had hardly started training in middle school when we moved here…” He moved to take a seat on her bed, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, the posture of somebody who was getting in the mood to tell a story, “So you wouldn’t know, but Japanese demons… Youkai, they’re very different than the ones you see here.”

“Here, it’s easy to tell. Anyone who’s got a hunting badge can tell at a glance who’s been possessed by a demon, and ones that aren’t possessing anybody are obviously not human… and only visible to us. Japan is completely different. Many of their yokai appear to be human at all times, or at least, humanoid. In addition, they rarely possess anyone; if you see somebody possessed, it’s bound to be by a very powerful demon. In addition,” His face turned very grave, “And this is the most important piece of information. Hunting in Japan is not shoot to kill. There’s a great number of yokai who mean no harm to anybody and can’t help their species. And many Japanese demons are so powerful that death only puts them out of commission for a short time, anyhow. You’ll need to learn spellbook writing to seal them away.”

“That sounds awfully complicated!” She chuckled sheepishly as she sat down beside him, “Can you teach me? Or will I have to find a mentor in Japan?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to do it myself, honestly,” He sighed, “I took an apprenticeship in Japan about three years before you were born, but my teacher killed a harmless youkai in front of my eyes a few weeks in and I never went back. I couldn’t stand the sight of somebody who meant no injury upon another, being so ruthlessly killed in the name of ‘good’. So,I only ever learned what was necessary for hunting in Japan, but not how to execute those things. And any additional knowledge I earned… came from your mother.”

“...And I suppose that’s the end of that? You never talk about her, so I can’t imagine you’d start now!” Mari teased, but then turned serious, “But, I was listening to everything you said. That is awfully different… It might take some getting used to, but I’m sure I can handle it!”

“That’s my girl; I’m sure of it too. But, there is one sticky point that I think you’ll have a lot of difficulty with,” He frowned at her, “When it comes to demons over there, most of the ones that you’ll need to attack are strong enough that you’d have to seal them away, as I said. This is also strong enough that chances are, you won’t be able to take them on your own.”

“...Oh,” She froze up, seemingly stopped in her tracks entirely by these words.

“You’ll probably need to get over yourself and work with others,” He explained, softly. In all of Mari’s life, she’d always preferred to do things herself; if she was being forced to do a group project in school, she’d make the other members leave all the work to her, even if it really was difficult. She’d prefer late nights than the possibility of everybody else falling through on her, or getting the impression that she wasn’t pulling her weight just because she goofed off in class.

“Well…” She mumbled, then returned to her usual enthusiasm with a hearty, forced laugh, “Oh, I’m sure that I’ll manage just fine! If it turns out I can’t do it on my own, there must be reliable teammates to be found somewhere in the country…”

“That’s my girl,” Her father nodded with a chuckle of his own, “I believe in you.”

\--------------------------------  
When Mari arrived in Tokyo, she came to the realization that she had miscalculated the time difference between Japan and Italy, and had completely missed the check-in for the hotel room she’d booked. Twenty-four hours was the holding period for no-shows at hotels, a fact which she knew quite well, and what sort of Tokyo hotel would have vacancies for day-of? This was a certain pickle. She pulled out her phone and got to searching, and came up with one motel that still listed some vacancies. Not the luxury she was used to, but that would have to do. She got a taxi over there, then sighed as she stumbled in.

“Hiiiii,” She greeted them in English, then switched to Japanese, “I’m looking for a room…”

“Just you?” The front desk employee leaned around past her, and saw only her luggage, “Well, I guess that’s fine. I can only give you a four hour room, though.”

“Four hours?? How does anybody get rested in that much time?” Mari questioned, pouting, “I can pay extra to stay the night, you know. I’m rich and stuff. I could buy this whole building.”

“Nobody gets rested here,” The employee shook his head, “This is a love hotel.”

“What?” Mari froze, then looked around, then back at her phone. She showed the phone screen to the employee, “But the google! It says that this is just a normal motel where I can get a room to spend the night! I’m really tired!”

“You seem plenty energized to me. Besides, with that much luggage, shouldn’t you be staying in a hotel if you’re as rich as you claim?” He asked, glancing at her bags again, “Look, I’d love to help you out, but my manager’s a real stick for this type of thing. Only rooms we have available right now are four-hour stays.”

“I messed up booking my hotel and missed the checkout time because I thought the timezones were different than they are…” Mari sheepishly admitted, “Haha, well, I’ll be going then! I’ll find some other city to stay in, Tokyo’s too busy to be my kind of scene anyway!” She lied, turning around and taking her bags with her with one hand as she waved goodbye with the other. Her taxi was still idling outside, probably knowing she’d be back, so she slid into the backseat again and leaned forward with a pout, “Hey, do you want a reaaaaaally big fare?”

“I guess,” The driver shrugged, “But there’s really not going to be any vacancy in the Tokyo area this time of year. Flower viewing season, lots of tourists flying in for it.”

“Yeah, I’m not looking to stay in the Tokyo area anymore. I’m gonna go to an Ohara hotel,” She explained, pulling out her wallet and checking that she had all her cards and enough cash for a substantial trip. Of course she did, “Take me to Numazu and I’ll make it worth your time, okay? I’ll pay double the fare since you have to make the trip back anyway!~”

“How exactly can you afford to do that? It’s gonna run up a gigantic meter,” The taxi driver questioned, and she just stuck out her tongue and winked at him.

“Gigantic meter? Any taxi fare is just a drop in the bucket for me. After all, _I’m_ an Ohara!” She explained, and as soon as the words left her mouth the driver pulled out and made his way to the on-ramp for the highway in that direction.

Mari didn’t know how long the drive took, because shortly after it began, she fell asleep in the backseat of the taxi, and the driver didn’t wake her until they’d arrived in Numazu. Though groggy for the first few moments, she sprung into action with ease, paying her bill then getting her luggage out. She was rested now, but made her way into the Ohara hotel anyway, and made herself a reservation with the front desk, who apologized profusely for having no vacant suites at the moment and needing to put her in a normal room, which she was unbothered by. She had her bags sent up to her room so that she could stop at the bar right away.

In Italy, she’d been able to drink for quite a while now, given that the age was sixteen for light stuff and eighteen for hard liquor, but at least at age 20 she was just old enough to drink in Japan too, though she wasn’t _planning_ on getting trashed, it could still happen. Using her passport for ID, she ordered one of the strangest cocktails on the menu and sat down at the bar to start sipping it, her jacket hanging open with her hunter badge visible on the side of her right arm.

When she was about halfway through her cocktail, a pair of women approached her. The one with deep blue hair tied in a high ponytail spoke first, “Hey there stranger. Can we buy you a drink?”

“Hiiiii!” She used the same greeting she had at the motel, waving, then grinned, “Sure, if I can buy you each one too!” She looked them both over, then noticed the badges pinned to their lapels, then glanced at her own badge on her arm, then back to theirs, “Oh! Those are the Japanese design for hunter badges, aren’t they?”

“Of course,” The other, with long dark hair and straight bangs, tossed her hair over her shoulder before crossing her arms, “And yours is… The one from Spain, maybe?”

“No, Italy,” Mari shook her head.

“Dammit, I thought I knew that one!” She lost her composure for a moment, but then returned to her previous state, giving Mari a cool glance-over, “Well, in any case, it’s nice to be meeting you. I’m Dia Kurosawa.” 

“And I’m Kanan Matsuura,” The other one introduced herself as well, with a bright grin, “Glad to see you! So, if you’re from Italy, what brings you here?”

“Oh, I lived in Japan for a while when I was younger,” She explained, kicking her feet a bit, “I lived right in this hotel, actually! My dad owns the Ohara hotel chain. My name’s Mari! I decided to come back here. I was gonna stay in Tokyo, but some things went wrong, so here I am. I hope I’m not intruding on your territory or anything!”

“Of course not,” Dia pulled herself into a seat next to Mari, folding her hands in front of herself on the bar, “In fact, we were just talking about how nice it would be if you decided to stick around here for a while. See, it’s just the two of us around here, and we’ve managed fine, but…” She took a deep breath, then shut her eyes tight and looked away.

“But Tokyo suffered a huge demon attack about three years ago. All six of Tokyo’s hunters at the time sacrificed their lives to stop it,” Kanan continued to explain, “Toudo Tsubasa, Yuuki Anju, Toudou Erena, Nico Yazawa, Nozomi Toujou, and Eli Ayase. They all lost their lives in this battle…”

“Six hunters…” Mari’s eyes widened as she looked down at her drink, mumbling in her shock, “No, it couldn’t be… Could it… Do you think it could be that…?” She looked up at Kanan again, “Ragnarok?”

“Nobody knows,” Dia answered, shaking her head, “Many think it is, of course. Ragnarok. The only evil force so strong that the only spells which can touch it are wildly dangerous to the user. Still, if that’s the case, then the Tokyo hunters only delayed it, seeing as trace Ragnarok influence has been spotted all throughout the world. If what they fought really was a manifestation of it, it’s only slumbering right now.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that!” Mari shook her head, “If it was Ragnarok, wouldn’t every hunter be briefed on it?”

“They don’t want people to be afraid,” Kanan explained, “In fact, Japan’s hunters have been told that ‘should Ragnarok manifest, it should not be engaged.’ Of course, that’s ridiculous. If Ragnarok comes to Numazu, Dia-chan and I won’t stay idle.”

“I won’t either,” Mari grew resolute with a nod, face set in determination, “Assuming, that is, I won’t get in your way.”

“The more people the better,” Dia shrugged, then grabbed the necklace she wore, “So… Mari-san. Have you got a sealing trinket yet?”

“Sealing trinket? What’s that?” Mari questioned, leaning in to look at the necklace without any regard for personal space.

“Surely you’ve heard that in Japan, there are demons which get along with humans,” Kanan grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away from Dia’s chest, “And for hunters, they’ll sometimes offer an allegiance. We seal them in trinkets which provide them with nice shelter, food, anything they need, and in return we can call upon them to fight alongside us. It’s a great advantage, if you can get ahold of a trinket.”

“Wow!” Mari clapped her hands together, “You two must be real veterans of this! When did you start training? Four years old? Five?”

“Er…” Dia scratched the back of her head, “Try six years ago? We both were middle school third years when we found out about this stuff. I guess we just got lucky.”

“Whoa! Yeah, for six years of training, you know more than me, and I started when I was nine!” Mari was very obviously impressed by them, then leaned into one of the trinkets again, “So, what sort of demons do you have?”

“Each one can hold two. Any more than that, and it starts taking mana to maintain, and if Ragnarok is coming here we can’t afford to be low on mana when it happens,” Dia explained, then reached into her pocket and held out another one, “Here, we’ve got an extra. I’ll teach you how to use it, if you want. Not in the bar though, we’d have to go up to a room. I guess your dad would be the one who gave us a four-person suite free of charge because of our occupation…”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Kanan agreed, standing up, “We can get those drinks from room service instead,” She gestured for the other two to follow her, so they did, and she led the way up to the suite. Once inside, she tapped her own trinket, as did Dia, four times each in a specific pattern.

“Onee-san!” The first one to appear was a rather short redhead, who didn’t quite seem like an adult at all, who immediately tackled Dia in a hug, “Onee-san, it’s been forever!”

“It’s been twenty hours,” Dia rolled her eyes, but smiled back, “Come on, Ruby. We need room for Hanamaru to come out too, don’t we? Then you’ll have to introduce yourselves to Mari-san.”

“Mari-san?” Ruby asked, then stood up, leaned towards Mari, and blinked a few times while Hanamaru materialized and came to stand next to her.

“Don’t be rude…” Maru tapped her arm, then looked to Mari as well, “Hello! I’m Kuniikida Hanamaru, the ‘past-dwelling demon’, zura. It’s nice to meet you.”

“O-o-oh!” Ruby flushed red as she realized how close she’d gotten in her investigation, and stepped to hide behind Maru as she gave her introduction, “And I’m… Kurosawa Ruby, the ‘Candy-hoarding demon’.”

“I’m Mari Ohara!” Mari introduced herself, then patted both of them on the head as she questioned, “Kurosawa? You’re related to Dia-san, then?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Dia nodded, “These two small ones fell in with a friend who was a bad influence, and turned them both. As soon as I found out, I just had to seal them. They’re not very strong, after all, and I couldn’t allow my little sister to fend for herself in a world where other hunters might not give her a chance to prove that she’s really a good girl. It was just impossible to imagine.”

“That’s right,” Maru nodded, “We used to be human, zura. Yoshiko-chan, though… I still don’t think she meant us any harm when she turned us. We were young then, after all. Children make bad decisions.”

“I see!!” Mari noted, grasping the concept with ease, then stepped over to Kanan, “What about your demons, Kanan-san?”

“Ah, these two were never human… If they’ll just come out already…” She sighed, continuing to tap the necklace, “Are they sleeping again? Jeeze… What if I was in danger?”

“Let them sleep for now,” Dia pulled Kanan’s hand away from the trinket, then looked to Ruby and Maru, “Ruby will take a bit to get used to you, Mari-san, but I’m sure Hanamaru-chan wouldn’t mind helping me demonstrate the use of the trinket.”

“Of course not, zura!” Maru rushed over to her, “I would love to help!”

“Great!” Dia held out her necklace, and Maru stood directly across from her, “Watch carefully, Mari-san. This is how you seal a demon to the trinket,” She turned back to adressing Maru, “Past-Dwelling Demon. I invite you to an allegiance with me, and call upon this seal. Do you accept?”

“Yes, I accept,” Maru said, then turned to Mari, “And that’s it. The demon accepts, and the contract is sealed. You have to know their title, though, and some demons only know their own name and not the title they’ve been given, zura…”

“This is fascinati-” Mari froze midsentence and looked up at the ceiling, “Wait. There’s something on the roof.”

“What?” Dia raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”

“A d-d-demon,” Ruby spoke up, “She’s right, there’s one… On the roof… I can feel its aura…”

“Okay,” Kanan crossed her arms, “How can she sense it though?”  
As soon as Kanan asked this question, an orange-haired demon was suddenly stood next to her, yawning with a stretch, “Aaaaaaaaaobviously,” Her yawn bled into her words, “She must have demon blood in her. Anyway, it’s Riko-chan.”

“Who?” Mari questioned, turning to her.

“Didn’t you hear me? Riko-chan. Sakurauchi Riko. The Musical Demon,” The girl explained, then held a hand out to Mari with a smile, “By the way, I’m Takami Chika, the Mikan Demon! Anyway, don’t worry about Riko-chan. She’s harmless, and even if the three of you tried to go see her she’d be gone before you could catch a glimpse. She’s very scared of humans. Almost as scared as she is of dogs!” Chika winked, “And you can tell she’s there because you’re at least part demon, okay?”

“...If that’s the case, then shouldn’t she be less scared of me than full humans?” Mari questioned, ignoring the confusion she had over the mention of demon blood. Well, she supposed that could have happened. Her mom, anyway, might have been one. It made sense to her without much thought put to the matter.

“I dunno!” Chika shrugged.

“I’m going to try,” Mari turned and left the room with single-minded determination, forgetting to note the room number or anything. She climbed the stairs to the roof a few floors up, then ran out into the middle of it and saw the back of a girl sitting on the edge of the roof, looking out on Numazu. She took one more step forward, “Sakurauchi Riko?”

“Hmm…” Riko hummed, then leaned her head entirely back to look at Mari without moving her shoulders at all, hair hanging inches from the floor of the roof, “That’s me. And you are?”

“Mari Ohara,” She grinned, then stuck her hands on her hips and leaned forward, “And I want to make an allegiance with you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Riko blinked a few times, slowly, then took off into the air, turned around, and stood gracefully before Mari, squinting at her, “An allegiance? What… Are you?”

“I’m a hunter,” Mari answered, putting one hand on her hip as she grabbed the trinket she’d just been granted with the other.

“Well, that much is obvious…” Riko mumbled, crossing her arms as she looked away, “Only hunters ask for allegiances. What I want to know is what you are on a biological level. You don’t smell like a human.”

“That’s news to me, actually. Takami-san just told me that I seem to be half demon,” Mari laughed, rubbing the back of her neck, “I’ve heard it isn’t odd for hunters to be this way, though, and it’s not super surprising to me since I haven’t ever met one of my parents. Anyway, I thought maybe we could get along, since I’m technically not all human!”

“That’s certainly intuitive of you,” Riko nodded slowly, then sighed as she crossed her legs, sitting down on the air with her wings spread wide, and resting her chin on her hand, “You’re not scary, anyway… But I don’t think I’d be of much use to you. I’m not very powerful, and you wouldn’t be able to call me out around humans at all.”

 

“That doesn’t really matter to me,” Mari said, rolling her shoulders before she leaned forward and reached one finger out, stretching to try and reach Riko’s nose from her position.

“It should, if you want to team up with any humans,” Riko muttered, but humored Mari by leaning forward enough to have her nose booped, “I would only be of any use to you if you went hunting solo, and everyone knows that’s a really bad idea. A lot of Yokai have abilities which can paralyze a single person.”

“Tsh. I’m way too good to get caught by anything like that! Besides, nothing says it has to be a mutually beneficial allegiance. Kurosawa-san made her allegiances to protect the demons, not to use them in battle! So, why can’t I do the same? I can only imagine there’s hunters who won’t be super fond of a demon, even a harmless one, who won’t cooperate with humans,” Mari pulled her finger away from Riko’s nose and turned her wrist to hold her hand, palm-up, towards the musical demon, “Why not let the less-than-human hunter, Mari Ohara, keep you safe?”

“You make a very tempting offer,” Riko said, then offered up a shrug, “I guess that would be fine, then. If you’re really okay with making a pointless allegiance.”

“I really am!” Mari exclaimed, grinning at Riko, then held out the sealing trinket that she’d been provided, “I invite you, Riko Sakurauchi, the Musical Demon, to enter an alliance with me!”

Riko finally set her feet down on the concrete of the roof again and took a step closer to Mari. She reached for the trinket, laying her palm against it, then gave a slow blink before speaking, “Mari Ohara, the Less-than-human Hunter. I, Riko Sakurauchi, the Musical Demon, accept your invitation. To this sealing trinket I am now bound, as am I to your soul.”

“Yay!” Mari returned the trinket to rest around her neck, then clapped her hands together, “I’m really happy! I’m looking forward to working with you, Riko-chan. Ah… I should probably go tell the others. Do you want to stay here, or hide out in the trinket?”

“Trinket. Who knows, maybe I’ll become less scared of humans that way. From inside I’ll know I’m safe, but still sort of be able to tell what’s happening. Exposure therapy, kind of?” Riko said, then leaned forward till she was eye level with the trinket resting against Mari’s chest, “I’ll go in now, so just let me know next time you want me to come out and chat or something. Or play piano. I do that pretty well…”

Before Mari could say anything else, Riko was gone. Disappeared before her eyes, and she could tell that Riko was now inside of the sealing trinket. That was simple. Mari wasn’t really expecting to be able to make an alliance so soon after finding out about the existence of such things, and maybe it _was_ an impulse decision that she might later grow to regret. Who cares, though? Mari’s whole life was a series of impulse decisions that she might later grow to regret, and she had only momentarily regretted any of them yet.

Not to say that she didn’t learn from her mistakes, but wasn’t learning to do better the first step in getting over regret anyway? Some might think it worse to know what they could have done differently without the opportunity to make a change, but Mari would rather suffer the death of a thousand cuts then find out she could have just walked away from that, than to never know that she had an opportunity to do better that she just didn’t take.

Mari realized as soon as she hit the final step of the stairwell between the top floor and the roof that she’d been in such a hurry leaving, she had no idea which room her newfound friends were in. She did need a way to keep in contact with them, so she’d need five more minutes with them at least to get their phone numbers or email addresses. Mari sighed and made her way to the elevator, taking it down to the lobby, then approached the front desk, “Hi, could you page somebody for me? I don’t know which room they’re in… Kanan Matsuura? Or maybe it’s under Dia Kurosawa…”

“No need for a page, Ohara-san. It’s quite fine if you know the room number. It’s 1172,” The clerk at the front desk chuckled, then froze, “Well, unless this is a test, in which case, it is hotel policy to page when a name but no number is given, to assure the guest is willing to have a guest.”

“No test,” Mari assured her, “Thanks for the shortcut!”

 

Mari made a mental note to mention, next time she called her father, that there was a small security problem at the Ohara hotels. As much as she appreciated the preferential treatment, she hadn’t even shown ID. It wasn’t like the existence of a Mari Ohara, heir to Ohara Hotels (Assuming the demon-hunting didn’t kill her first) was any sort of secret. An especially convincing body double, another blonde Italian-American-Japanese young woman, who happened to have an interest in stalking someone staying at this hotel could get away with it.

A very specific situation, sure, but a security and privacy concern nonetheless. It wasn’t a test, though; She wouldn’t name the cashier who’d done it, just make a note that it should be made policy that, unless they were there on official management business and wearing the proper name badges, even Oharas should need to page the room to get permission for the number.

Mari went to the elevator, heading up to the tenth floor. The numbering system for this hotel was a little bit strange, with the first floor being “1001-1080”, “2001-2080”, and so on until the double digits started with ten at “1101-1180”. It wasn’t the simplest, but self-explanatory once one figured it out. Mari wasn’t sure why they didn’t just use three digits for the lower floors, but it had been that way since before Ohara Hotels even belonged to her father, an odd decision which stretched back generations. Once she got to the right floor, she found the room, and knocked on it.

Dia opened the door, then blinked a few times before she spoke, “Ah, Ohara-san. What were you doing? Why’d you take off like that?”

“Oh! Right,” Mari laughed a bit, “Sorry I didn’t say anything. I went to the roof, and I made an allegiance. I realized, you know, if Sakurauchi-chan is scared of humans… Well, it’d be bad to let her just keep running away all the time, right? I wanted to be able to protect her, so. This was my decision. I realized just about immediately that if I was only half human, she might not be scared of me, so I could keep her safe in a trinket.”

“Oh, wow,” Dia said, staring at her, “I guess you really are a good hunter, if you have quick thinking like that on your side. How did you even come to that conclusion in a few seconds?”

“I dunno,” Mari shrugged, “I guess it runs in the family! The Oharas have been great at business and demon hunting for generations. You use a lot of the same skills for both, you know! Have to be able to think of solutions for some really weird problems. Oh hey, speaking of that, have you noticed anything about your room that would be better if it were different?”

“Huh?” Dia asked, a bit confused as she let Mari in, “Are you asking us to complain about your hotel?”

“In a word, yes,” Mari nodded, stepping inside.

“Now that you mention it,” Kanan chimed in from where she sat by the far window, “I think you might have the wrong type of lightbulbs in the bathrooms. The sharp white light actually makes it kind of hard to see anything in the mirror. I worked at a diving store with fake natural light bulbs, and that made it easier to look at shiny things like the tanks. That’s all I got.”

 

“That makes sense! Thank you, Matsuura-chan!” Mari beamed as she flounced over to Kanan, “Actually, I thought that we were already supposed to have switched over to false natural light… Hm. Local management must have skipped that to cut costs and just hoped that nobody higher-up would ever find out. It _has_ been years since any Oharas have come to this specific hotel, and you know what? I bet it’s the right type of lighting in the Ohara Suite!”

“You really think one of your own hotels would cheap out like that?” Dia asked, leaning against the door as she shut it.

Mari shrugged, “It’s hard to get good local management. For a lot of managers, the most important thing is the financial bottom line. That’s important, sure, but there’s more to guest satisfaction than balancing the price of their room and offering fresh towels! These old lights were giving people headaches and eye strain. I don’t want to be responsible for that. I’ll have to talk with the branch manager here.”

“You really have a lot invested in this,” Dia noted, “And in hunting too, it seems like. We’re glad to have you here… But, please, if Ragnarok does appear here, prioritize it over the hotel, will you?”

“Of course,” Mari agreed, nodding, “Ohara Hotels are important to me and to a lot of people, but the fate of a city, or however far Ragnarok reaches this time around… That’s much more important, to more people. I wouldn’t dream of getting my priorities mixed up.”

“That’s good to hear,” Kanan smiled at her, holding one hand against her own trinket, “It’s our duty, as hunters, to protect humans and demons alike from the advent of Ragnarok. Everything else is just collateral. It’s what we’ve been working toward since hunters first took up the mantel of our profession.”

“I know,” Mari said, dead serious, “I will never fail to remember that.”


End file.
